The Making Of A Banner (Without Buying An Expensive Cutting Machine)

    I thought about buying a Cricut or a Brother Scan and Cut last week.  I felt the need to make myself a banner saying "Happy Fall Y'all" to hang in my living room.  I thought that the only way I could make a beautiful banner would be to use a fancy expensive cutting machine and the machines I was looking at cost over $200.00 each.  The letters on the banner are in the wrong order.  They have to be fixed.  I misspelled Y'all.  It's easy to fix and I will do it after I take it down before I put it away. 

    I was in Hobby Lobby yesterday and I figured out a different way.  The best part is that I only spent about $10.00 for stencils and burlap ribbon.  I had the fabric, the stabilizer, the thread, the twine, and the magic marker.  This was fun to make and I love it.

    Here is a close up of the flags.

    I cut the flags from the fabric, then ironed them to stabilizer,and I sewed around the edges of each flag to hold them together.  I doubled up the burlap, and sewed the two layers together along the long edges.  I drew circles using a small plastic cup and a black Sharpie.  I sewed around each circle to keep the two pieces together, cut them out, then I used a stencil and a magic marker to make each letter.  I sewed each letter to a flag.  I attached the flags to a two pieces of twine using the sewing machine and it's done.  It took me about five hours to make from first cut to last stitch.  

Aqua

   I sewed up some hanging dishtowels using some of the pretty fat quarters from the Riley Blake Bake Sale fabric collection.  These three hanging dishtowels are going to live with dear daughter.

   I love these patterned buttons.  So cute.

 






   

Wild Christmas Pillow Cover

    I made myself a bright and wild red and green Christmas pillow cover.  I love it.  I found the fabrics on Etsy and I used the quilted pillow cover tutorial here. 

Some Cross Stitch Charts I Love

  Now mind you, I have never cross stitched before, but I want to start and I know, it's early for Halloween, but I wanted to share a link to a chart I bought because I love it so much.  I think this will be the first chart I ever cross stitch because it's just so clever.

Link To Clever Halloween Cross Stitch 


Here's another chart that I bought and love.

  Link to Christmas Cross Stitch 


Here's another chart that I haven't bought but I like this one a lot.

Link to Pretty Cross Stitch


I found free cross stitch charts on the DMC website here.  All you have to do is sign up for a newsletter and you can have free charts for flowers, bugs, borders, tiles, small animals, alphabets, and tiles.

I found this free cross stitch pineapple welcome chart on Pinterest.  Link here.

Here are some very cute free charts from Country Living.  Link here.

There is another place I found free cross stitching patterns, but you had to sign up for a newsletter with an email address and they also asked for your physical address.  I did all this because there was one chart I could not live without.  The site is called cross-stitching.com and the link is here if you don't mind giving out this information.

Modifying Another Free Pattern From A Blog

  I love the internet.  I don't know how I did any sewing or crafting before the internet.  I admire the super smart folks that post sewing tutorials with written instructions and pictures on their blogs so we all can make lovely items to use.  When I find a pattern I really like but need to modify, I don't mind taking those clever instructions and adjusting them to meet my needs.  It seems like I have been doing this a lot lately.

    I spent part of last Sunday modifying a water bottle carrier pattern that I found on one of those super smart blogs to accommodate a larger than 16.9 oz. bottle of water.  This carrier will swallow my largest water bottle and it's perfect.

    I had already used these instructions back in 2016 to make a regular size water bottle carrier for a normal 16.9 oz. plastic bottle like a Zephyrhills bottle.  That water bottle carrier is still in use, but sometimes I want to carry more than 16.9 oz. of water and for that I need a bigger carrier.

    When I made that regular size water bottle carrier in 2016, my daughter made one for herself, but she was thinking ahead and she modified the size so hers would be big enough for her big water bottle.  I helped her make that water bottle carrier, but unfortunately I didn't take any notes on the modifications she made, so I had to start from scratch.  That's one of the reasons I have been blogging about how I make my changes so I can just look them up in my blog.

    I started with the instructions at this blog post:   Instruction for water bottle carrier.  

   I didn't bother to measure my bottle because I have two big bottles, a 21 oz Camelbak and a 32 oz. Contigo and I wanted this carrier to be big enough for either bottle.  I figured whatever I ended up with would work fine for what I needed.  Here are my modifications.

  1.   I didn't bother to piece the outside of the carrier with coordinating fabric like the blogger did.  I hardly ever have coordinating fabric and I wanted to use my souvenir Hawaii fabric for these so I cut two pieces of fabric for the body of the carrier (the outside and the lining) 14" (width/around the bottle) x 12" (height/deep)  or you could cut one long rectangle that is 28" x 12" and just fold it where the two pieces would be seamed.  I also cut one piece of Insul-Brite 13" x 11" for the body of the carrier according to the instructions.

   2.   Since I didn't measure and I couldn't determine how big the circle bottom (2 pieces of fabric and one piece of Insul-Brite) had to be I cut mine at 8" in diameter which was way too big.  I ended up trimming this down to about 4.5" in diameter after the body of the carrier was put together.

   3.  I followed the instructions for sandwiching and quilting the body of the carrier and the circle bottom.  I sewed the body up to make a tube and I sewed a French seam here to enclose the edges.  I measured the circle bottom and trimmed my large circle down so it would fit and I attached it according to the instructions.

   4.  This water bottle holder will be holding heavier weight with the larger bottles, so I made my strap from the fabric I used for the rest of the project.  I think fabric straps are more comfortable than webbing and definitely stronger than ribbon.  I cut two  3" strips the width of the fabric.  I sew the short ends together to get one long strip, then I make the strap like the one in this tutorial:  Friendship Gift Bag Tutorial.   This is how I make the straps for most of my bags, wristlets and totes.  They are really sturdy.  One other thing I did was to hem the two short ends of the strap that are being attached to the body of the carrier by turning them up before I topstitched each end.  These straps are not enclosed and hemming keeps them neat.  I trim this strap to be about 56" long, which measures about 26" from your shoulder (taking into account that I used an inch on each end to attach the strap to the carrier).  You can make the strap as long or as short as you wish.  If you find that after you attach the strap that it is too long, you can just tie a knot in it to shorten the length.

   Those are my modifications and here is the final product  Pictures of the bottles in the carrier and pictures of the bottles next to the carrier.  I will definitely be making more of these.

   This took me about 2 hours to make from cutting fabric (not my favorite part of sewing) to final stitch.  That time includes finding the right color of thread to use, filling a bobbin, and moving kitties off my ironing board every time I had to use it. (LOL).

Okay, This Is One Quick Project

  I made this purse from more of my souvenir fabric last night after work.  It took me about an hour and 45 minutes.  Love this.

   And I made this one this morning.  More souvenir fabric.

Instructions For My Purse

This post will memorialize the instructions for how I make my favorite purse.  

In the previous post there were two bags pictured.  The one on the right is the best size for everything I carry to work or shopping, including my eyeglass case, my cell phone, a wristlet for identification/debit card/money, my keys, inhaler, lipstick/Blistex and hand sanitizer.  

The bag on the left is deeper and narrower and it's a great tote bag but I don't like it to use as a purse, everything goes to the bottom and it's hard to reach small items.  The instructions to make my purse are here:

I used the tutorial here: http://www.psiquilt.com/2009/08/frie...-tutorial.html.  This is the basic instruction on how to make the bag.  

My modifications are made to the front and back, the bottom, the quilting (I add a back to the piece to be quilted to save my machine from the batting fuzz), the boxing of the corners and the size of the straps.    

Here are my modifications: The front and back are each 8 strips of fabric that are 2.5" wide x 8" long, sewn together.  Or you can use two pieces of fabric 8" x 16" for the front and back.  The bottom piece is 8" by 16".  I put this together following the instructions from the tutorial. In the alternative you can make the front, back and bottom on piece of fabric that is 24" by 16".

 

To box the bottom on this larger size I measure 2" from the tip of the corners.  Since the bag is bigger, I can make the bottom a little wider that the original instructions. 

I cut my straps 4" by the WOF, then I cut that piece in half to make each one approximately 4" x 21". 

When I quilt the sides and bottom, I put a piece of backing fabric on this piece. I don't like to quilt with just the batting on the machine. I don't like the fiber from the batting getting into my machine.  

I have another piece of floral fabric and the sea turtle fabric that I made a bag with already.  I should have all my bags done in the next couple of weeks. 

Beautiful Sea Turtles

I fell in love with green sea turtles when I traveled to Hawaii in April.  I learned that in Hawaii these turtles are called Honu.  I just had to have some fabric with beautiful sea turtles on it.  This evening I made one of my favorite bags with this fabric.  I have enough of this fabric to make a big tote bag, as well, so you will be see at least one more project made with this fabric.

More Pretty Bags

   I made a couple of different quilted bags with more of the fabric from Hawaii.

New Tote Bag Finished, A Simple Christmas Decoration

I finally ironed and cut up the fabric for a tote bag from the souvenir fabric from Hawaii.  I love this beautiful purple and pink flower print.  I bought the coordinating solid canvas after I came home knowing I wanted to use it as the bottom of the tote.  I have more of the print fabric left and there will be another bag or two made with this.

I bought some Christmas cards last year to put in frames for decorations this year.  I pulled this card out and found this 5" x 7" frame at Target this morning.  Now I have another Christmas decoration.  I have some others cards that I will be framing.

Secret Sewing Is Done, On To Selfish Sewing And Making

     I can't believe it's August already.  This year is flying by.  I've only made one trip to the beach this summer so my summer season has not been filled with fun and excitement, just working and doing regular household and life maintenance.   I am trying to schedule more beach day trips before the end of September.

    I'm so glad that I I finished five secret sewing projects last week for dear daughter's birthday in November.  It's hard for me to do secret sewing because I can't share it on social media until after it is gifted.

     My selfish sewing projects start with this adorable snow family fabric.  I found this at JoAnn's a couple of years ago and I made some hanging dishtowels with it to give away to my Christmas day hostess.  I have been wanting more of this fabric ever since.

    I found the snow family fabric again last weekend and had to buy it.   I made this quilted pillow with a whole cloth piece of the cute snow family fabric so I could see all the little family members.  I especially love the kitty and doggy in this print.  I cut the fabric a little bigger than my sixteen inch pillow form to allow for the quilting and I cross hatch quilted the top piece with a scrap of 80/20 Heirloom batting and a white muslin backing.  Then I joined this quilted top to an envelope backing.  It was really simple and I love it.

   The front of the pillow.

   The back of the pillow.

   Close up of snow kitty with a redbird on its head.

    I found another YouTube pieced pillow cover tutorial that I just love.  I have purchased red and green Christmas fabric to make one for me.  Here is a link to the tutorial:   quilted pillow cover tutorial.  This tutorial is really well done and I used the dimensions to make the whole cloth pillow cover that I made above.

    I still have to make the tote bags from my Hawaii souvenir fabric and that fabric is sitting on my ironing board waiting patiently.

    There is one more Christmas decoration that I want to make.  I have a crochet angel dishcloth pattern that I want to experiment with by making the pattern with worsted white cotton yarn combined with silver crochet size 10 thread.  I want to make a couple for me and a couple for dear daughter for Christmas decorations.  I'll have to see how the first one turns out before I commit to making four.  LOL.

    I have knit 24 dishcloths since the beginning of the year.  I am finished with knitting dishcloths for awhile.  I have plenty to give to dear daughter and keep for me.  I still have to get back to my hexagon quilt top and my crochet blankets that I started.